Ummm, I would ban your stuff on the basis of having coolwebsearch on the front page. I would never allow anyone who promotes those scumbags to get one hit of my traffic if at all possible.

Free hosting is a dead end issue when it comes to link sites - it just isn't permitted anymore. More and more the bigger TGPs are not interested in dealing with people on free hosts either. Sponsor free galleries and free sites have eliminated the need to add a freebie middle man into the picture anymore.

Alex

Which LL rule it breaks?

AF, it's the most basic rule of them all:

Basically, coolwebsearch is one of the most annoying and consistant spreaders of scumware on the planet. People have lost untold millions (if not billions) of dollars trying to get that shit off their computers. Anyone (and I mean anyone) sending traffic to them is on my lifelong shitlist, for aiding and abetting a company I consider scumbags.

Alex

I'm with RawAlex on this one. It's some of the worst scumware I've seen. Anyone who knowingly promotes this stuff should be banned for life.

coolwebsearch |raygun|

Having been infected I gotta agree here too....

it's very nice, but what is my fault? MY freesites which do not break any rules will be declined just because you don't like the front page of my hosting provier's site? wow.
there are no cws ads on MY sites and I'm not going to work with them.

I'm ready to remove cws advertising from my frontpage.... if it is the reason of penalties.

But:
You confuse a reason and effect..
You wasn't infected with a "coolwebsearch". You was infected with adware (trojans) which was used for cheating a coolwebsearch system.

I'd got some nasty trojans and dialers two years ago when check a listing on thehun.net and easypic.com.
But it doesn't mean that TheHun and EasyPic are scumbags. It just was a redirect (cheating).

AFrevenue: Are you kidding? Cool Web Search itself as a company has an entire section which exists only to come up with new ways to infect and MAINTAIN the infection on end user's computers. That isn't some 3rd rate hacker spewing viruses, it is a business plan and concentrated effort by coolwebsearch itself to control the world by controlling the PCs by the use of trojans which are almost impossible to remove. They have literally HUNDREDS of variations of the infection just to keep it on your system.

You might want to consult google on this one. Did you know there is a tool called cwshredder? it is specifically made to try to remove the overwhelming collwebsearch infections.

As for the reason for the banning, I don't know. But i often investigate hosts by raising their home page to see what is there. If I see coolwebsearch, I think scam, and the host is immediately TOAST.

I am not 100% comfortable right now that you are a "host" in the normal sense, perhaps just a friend lending a friend some space.

Alex

As for the hun and easypic, that was material OUTSIDE of their site. They didn't get up in the morning and say "hey, let me link to this virus!". They were victims of redirects. Your are actively linking to one of the net's most hated companies.

You have made your business choice. There are results of that choice. That's all.

Alex

Is there anything I can do to prevent this in the future? I put up my company's web site so it no longer looks completely unprofessional. :) But that was more of a knee-jerk response.

I would apprecate it if you could point me in the right direction.

Regards,

-Altheon

I did't know about any tools. Never had deals with a hacking, sorry.

It was actually a payhost.
I don't know who am I now :(